VERY INTERESTING THREAD ABOUT PAINTING WITH A ROLLER.-Hybridz

[Ricklandia]

Project "Beer Fridge" notes:

(Project "Beer Fridge" is an unabashed, untainted and totally foolhardy attempt to see if this painting technique will work for one woefully underfunded, underskilled but enthusiastic artisan - myself! The goal: repaint the garage refridgerator - refererred lovingly as simple "Beer Fridge" with an sexy coat of Sunrise Red Gloss, and if all goes as planned an even sexier set of white racing stripes using the technique described in this thread... oooooh, can't you just see it now!)

1. Project gets underway today. Cleaned the fridge well, wiped down with mineral spirits and let dry.

2. Wetsanded with 400 grit paper to give the paint something to grip.

3. Wiped down again with mineral spirits again and let dry well.

4. Mix Paint: It's a warm Florida day (~80 degrees, but dry by S. FL standards) so I mix the paint with ~10% mineral sprits. Seems pretty darn thin to me.

5. Of note, although the fridge is clean, there are a significant number of surface rust spots, most noticably on the top from condensation when opening the freezer. Beer Fridge has been living a very comfortable life in the garage for several years now, but as it is S. Florida, it does get VERY humid in here. I chose not to sand down the rust spots to clean metal because A. I'm lazy and excited to get going, and B. because I wanted to see just how the Rustoleum would handle these spots.

6. Main Door - Okay, here we go... BUBBLES! More bubbles, and more bubbles.

They are not going away, not after a light pressure re-roll either. A good stiff blast of breath pops them and the paint starts to lay down. Whew! Half way thru the door and I'm beginning to think the paint is too thick - or is it my technique? I press on.

7. Top door - trying to work a little faster and the results are better. Loading up more paint on the roller and trying NOT to reroll so much (causing in effect a second coat). This is where I realize I'm starting to make a mess of things, not with the rolling but with my brush technique. Cut-in is not my strong suit and it shows grossly here. Drips and sags from too much paint, then I remember 69Chargers advice; roller in one hand, brush in the other. Getting better... you are wise, oh Master 69Charger.

8. Left Side - Load roller more, roll faster. Hmmm, this is starting to work better. Still have lots of bubbles but by now I'm huffing and puffing away to get them all popped, and the results are starting to look much better! Note to self: quit smoking cigarettes... SOON!

9. Top surface - MUCH easier to do a horizontal surface! Even with te considerable rust up here, I can see much better results.

10. Left side - Ironically, this side comes out best. Ironic because "Beer Fridge" sits up next to the water heater and there's no manuevering room on this side. Because of this, I take the tact of REALLY loading up the roller and working very fast. Get as much on as I can and get it spread out as quickly as I can. Huff, puff, and the paint really statrs to lay down nicely. Lesson learned? By going quicker I'm not "pulling" the paint up with the roller as much.

First coat done, time to assess: Time for my "WTF AM I DOING!" moment! Standing back, the fridge looks... Horrible. Verging on frightening. BUT... It admitedly did a rather nasty job on the first door, and looking at the final side, things look much better. Wait an hour and re-assess.

Okay, it STILL looks bad but I'm ready to press on. I SHOULD really stop here and sand down what I've done, but I decide to press on.

11. Mix Paint for coat #2 - I basically doubled the mineral spirits to ~20-25% this time. MUCH thinner, really starts to feel like water this time around. Yes Master, Grasshopper is learning.

12. Second Coat - what a world of difference! Still getting the bubbling but only for a few quick seconds. Even the slightest breath disperses them and the paint really lays down quick and smooth. If not, a very light pressure re-roll and slight puff is all it takes.

13. Entire surface takes half as much time as coat #1 and the results are much better.

Clean up and done for the night.

Evaluation: learned quite a bit. First and foremost; THIN THAT FRIGGIN PAINT! Even while mixing batch number two I thought to myself "this will never work, it's too damned thin..." WRONG! I can definitely see that coat number one was too thick, and that it will take at least 3-4 coats using the thinner batch to completely cover the underlaying color (white), but the benefit is that the thinner coat goes on MUCH smoother with less trouble. Less trouble, and less sanding, which is what I will be doing ALOT of after that first coat mess I made. But I had the wife give me an honest opinion, and looking at the final LEFT side with two coats - unsanded - even she saw the potential.

Gonna take some photos but hold off posting them until I get a chance to wetsand first (don't want to scare off anyone just yet).

[AWC]

Awesome--keep us posted. Can't wait for the pictures. Sounds like you came up the application learning curve pretty quick, the last side being the best, which is encouraging.

Are you using the Rustoleum Industrial Enamel or the regular Consumer variety Rustoleum Stops Rust paint?

[Ricklandia]

Awesome--keep us posted. Can't wait for the pictures. Sounds like you came up the application learning curve pretty quick, the last side being the best, which is encouraging.

Are you using the Rustoleum Industrial Enamel or the regular Consumer variety Rustoleum Stops Rust paint?

For Project Beer Fridge I'm using the consumer variety. The local Home Depot had a a few color choices and the wife picked out Sunrise Red. While we were there, however, she also spotted two gallon cans of the 7300 Masstone Base Tint tucked behind everything on the floor. There are the Industrial Enamal. I snatched them up even though I have no clue what color I might be interested in. What I DIDN'T remember to do, however was to find out if the same store could tint it for me. When I got home I hit the Rustoleum site and it says that paint can only be tinted with Rustoleum tints (Rustoleum 2020 Tint system I think).

After the first go round with this technique, it seems to me that there's little difference in the paints as to how it goes on, at least from what I'm reading with other peoples experiences with both varieties. The real question is if there's a durability difference between them.

[AWC]

I think getting the application correct gets you most of the way there. I know from experience that Rustoleum is very tough stuff (being an enamel). I doubt there is any magic to the Tremclad formulation.

I was also very interested to see that the Rust Paint comes in a "clear" color. It would be very interesting to roll on a couple of coats of this over the six coats of color and see what kind of gloss results. They mentioned that over on the other forum as well.

[olderthanme]

When I did a few sections I tried first over paint that was already there and then over a section of bare metal. The section of bare metal turned out best but the paint was not thin enough... I haven't had much time to play with it but the one layer over the bare metal is holding up very well compared to the stuff over old paint...Imay be able to play with it some this weekend and will post some pics if I do.

I will post some pics of my bare metal section

and a section over paint and bondo...just rolled on with no cleaning other than wiping off any dust.

[Ricklandia]

Project Beer Fridge - Part 2

Well, after a good nights sleep and an exhausting day at the office, Project Beer Fridge entered phase two.

1. Wetsanded down the fridge concentrating on the drips and runs from my poor cut-in work last night.

2. A wipedown with mineral spirits afterward began to reveal the potential.

3. Mixed up another batch of paint - a fairly strong dilution as was the second coat last night. Approx 25% would be my guess, possibly too thin but after seeing the results of leaving it too thick last night I wanted to see the results if it was diluted too thin (if indeed it was).

4. Application went on VERY smoothly tonight. Rolled out well, and was even able to attain the magic "light touch bubble removing technique" as described by 69Charger. Interestingly, what I found worked equally as well, if not quicker, was just a slight puff of air. The "air" technique was able to un-bubble as much as 1.5 sq. ft. of painted surface at a time. I think this may be an indicator that the mix might be just about right.

5. Took a brief break while waiting to coat three to dry. Things are starting to look good. Other than a few very small spots, the paint has now coated thick enough to hide the original color. The bottom door looks much improved from last night, the top doorlooks good other than some sag along the top corner that I failed to sand down enough. :/

6. Coat 4 goes on. Again, smooth and easy and things are really starting to take shape. Doors look better yet - Left and Right sides look... great! Top as well!

7. Have learned that "Beer Fridge's" best friend is... no, not the one that feeds it with a constant supply of ice cold delicious liquid heaven. No, Beer Fridge's best friend apparently is Dog Hair. Note to self: Shave the dogs

8. Clean up and assess; Tonights lessons learned are unknown. Certainly the thinner mix works much better for the rolling, but the trade off is that applying it with the foam brush yields very poor results. It's so thin it basely wants to "fill" or cover as traditional cut in painting does. I have several areas where I taped off that just dont seem to want to hold the paint when brushed on. Again, when painting an auto all these parts would be stripped off, but it does make me wonder how painting tight spots will go ( ie vents slots, door jams, rain rails, etc)

It's late, I'm tired. Time to think on it tomorrow.

[Ricklandia]

Thought I'd update - I posted a few progress photos over on the Mopar forum/thread in more detail, but so far I'm havin fun and liking what I see.

I'll attach some photos here from before and up to date. Sorry, most pics are on the other CPU.

I've finished 6 coats and it looks decent. I still have the final wetsand ahead and stripes to paint.

Which brings up a question - old school stripes or new school stripes?

I had an inclination to paint them old school - one wide, one thin, both off-centered - picture late '60s. I know it dates me a bit , but WTF.

pre1.bmp

untitled 2.bmp

[kenz240z]

I predict that your beer fridge will now get more speeding tickets...

[CoastGuardZ]

I predict that your beer fridge will now get more speeding tickets...

ROFL

Now That's Funny!

Stripes... how 'bout a variant on the BRE scheme?

Nate

[Ricklandia]

Thought I'd post some picts of the progress. Taped up and laid down the stripes, but I think I needed some different tape. I got a tiny bit of bleed under the tape in a few spots but I think I can sand them down before the final buffing.

[jmortensen]

That fridge makes me thirsty just looking at it. It's kinda hard to see detail, but that looks really acceptable. Would you say the same seeing it up close and in person?

[Ricklandia]

That fridge makes me thirsty just looking at it. It's kinda hard to see detail, but that looks really acceptable. Would you say the same seeing it up close and in person?

Yes and no. If you look at the "before" picture, I think you'd agree that it now looks significantly better. Is it perfect? No, however I am not finished yet (still need to buff out the doors). The areas that have faults are generally in the areas that I first started with, the best areas are where I finished with. The learning curve was not steep, but was apparent - I learned as I went. Am I satisfied? Absolutely. Am I ready to paint my car with it? No, not yet. for a few reasons.

On the areas where I did best, I think the paint looks terrific - as good if not better than your average "economy" paint job coming from your local paint shop. It's a bit hard for me to tell if the minor orange peel texture was from the paint or from the original paint surface. I sanded down the doors significantly more than the sides as the doors had minor rust. The surface on the doors now looks very smooth, much less "orange peel" than the sides. I chose not to final wetsand the sides simply because the final coat looked so good, very glossy. I did however, do a final wetsanding of the doors to clean up a few mistakes. I gave a quick attempt with buffing it out but with little success, I'm afraid it's going to take significantly more to bring back the gloss. I'm also not convinced yet that it will work on an auto for two reasons; 1. This was done with the "consumer" grade paint and not the "professional" and 2. the paint still feels "soft". I cannot scratch the paint with a fingernail as some have claimed (the final coat is one week old) yet I can still tell that it's "new". I guess that's to be expected. I'm willing to wait a month or two let the paint fully dry/cure before making a final evaluation. My biggest concern at this point is getting the final wetsanded coat to shine like the unsanded sides.

I will say that if I have one more lingering concern. it would be my attempts to paint around taped off areas (door handles, badges). The originator of the "method" described using a foam brush for tight spots, deep angles, etc. My experience with it was that it was very difficult to keep these areas from running or dripping paint. That's not to say that it cant be done, it may just be my technique (or lack thereof). I would say that anyone thinking of painting thier car without totally stripping it down (windows included) might struggle as I did.